This invention relates generally to systems for providing incentives to customers to shop in retail stores and, more particularly, to systems for delivering customer incentives and other shopping aids via a computer network. Various approaches have been widely used to deliver purchasing incentives, usually in the form of printed discount coupons, to customers of retail stores. Coupons have been distributed to customers by mail, either in a random manner or in a more demographically focused manner. Coupons have also been delivered to customers in retail stores, either from kiosks or at the check-out stand in response to the customer's purchase of some preselected item or items. The latter technique is well documented in prior patents assigned to the same assignee as the present application; e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,212, "Method and Apparatus for Dispensing Discount Coupons."
In recent years, an increasing number of retail store customers also own personal computers and, of these, many have access to computer network services that provide connections to the Internet and the World Wide Web. Although some computer sites connected to the World Wide Web have begun to offer "online" shopping services, and some services have proposed to deliver discount coupons through a computer network, the full potential of online delivery of incentives has not been realized prior to the present invention.